Number My Sins
by prettyish
Summary: And while she had been just a girl, nineteen, who found beauty in the world that she had once almost helped end, those six words break down everything she has built anew. She once more becomes Pansy Parkinson, and she is going home. EWE. PPxHP.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary** : _And while she had been just a girl, nineteen, who found beauty in the world that she had once almost helped end, those six words break down everything she has built anew._

 _She once more becomes Pansy Parkinson, and she is going home._

[In which Pansy forges new alliances, reads feminist literature, and learns a little something about love, life, and what happiness truly is. EWE. PPxHP]

 **Pairings** : Pansy Parkinson x Harry Potter

 **Warnings** : graphic depictions of violence (not in first chapter), depictions of PTSD, panic attacks, swearing, referenced torture (off-screen), depictions of illness.

* * *

She is nineteen and she falls in love with Sylvia Plath like every muggle girl does once in her life.

She reads Teasdale and Millay, takes a poetry course at the local college that she pretends doesn't change her life, starts carrying a journal wherever she goes and keeps a pen-not quill, how strange is _that?_ -with purple ink. She jots down notes in tiny, precise letters she remembers perfecting under threat of paddling by a particularly vicious governess when she was seven.

There are no governesses now, here; her handwriting grows looser, loopier, more relaxed.

They tell her she looks like Anne Sexton and once that would have been an insult, being compared to a muggle, but now she flushes and feels more than a little bit _proud_ when they tell her that her poems sound like Sexton's, too.

Surrounding herself with non-magical things and people, she casts out the disgrace, the ridicule, the infamy she lived in every second back in England once the war was won. These people don't know Slytherin, don't know you-know-who, don't use wands or potions or brooms. They don't sneer at her with disdain when she walks into a shop or down the street and they don't whisper ( _shout_ ) awful words at her any place she goes. She doesn't pick up the paper to see her name slandered and her every _move-word-breath_ dissected.

The muggles she once hated with so much passion are now her friends, her mentors, her idols. They don't exile her for a mistake she made out of fear as a _**child**_ in a _**war**_. For every second of her life she spent detesting them, these muggles-people-repay her twice over with kindness and acceptance.

She receives letters from her friends that she keeps meaning to respond to but somehow never manages to. She reads them, then keeps the parchment in the well-thumbed copies of _The Awakening_ and _The House of Mirth_ that she treasures. Sometimes she picks up her pen and almost writes back-almost.

So it's not a surprise when a tawny owl taps its beak on the glass of her window as she rereads _Jane Eyre_ for the third time. She doesn't look up from the book as she unlatches and opens the beveled glass window, doesn't even read the letter until two days later, but when she does, oh.

It's not a letter, really. It's a sentence. But the few words there are written on the parchment in ink enchanted to reveal only to her eyes cut through her like a burning knife and while she had been just a girl, nineteen, who found beauty in the world that she had once almost helped end, those six words break down everything she has built anew.

She once more becomes Pansy Parkinson, and she is going home.

* * *

She arrives in Dorset that night.

Lips painted a shade of red that reminds of her freshly spilled blood and nails the color of stinging welts on peachy skin, she stumbles out of the nearest international floo and into the cool night air. The bag over her shoulder contains only her clothes, her books, her pens-it's filled with everything she has and it's not even charmed to be bigger on the inside. She wears an impractical, expensive dress, couture clothes all she owns; a habit that she'll never be rid of. But her boots are sensible with only a small heel and she's owned them for three years, the longest she's ever kept a pair of shoes.

The house that appears as she travels up a dirt track is weatherworn, not too much bigger than the small cottage on the coast in Salem her aunt had gifted her when she needed to hide away, the place she's lived for the past two years. _Oh, how the mighty have fallen_ , she might have thought once. Once, but not today.

A dark-skinned boy stands in the open doorway at the end of the path. Dirt turns to grass turns to gravel turns to cobblestones beneath her feet. A lantern dangles from one hand, held up and out against the cloying darkness and shadows that threaten to overtake them. Her hand clenches around the letter she hasn't let go of since picking the wax seal open with her thumbnail and the parchments starts to crush between her fingers and she should let it go. The words are burned into her mind already; there's no point in keeping the note as if she needs it like an invitation. Her pulse races erratically and her stomach is in her throat and the boy is reaching long fingers towards her-skin, touch-she lifts her fingers and rests them in his palm.

The boy-no, she corrects: the _**man**_ closes his hand around her fingers in a grasp that makes her heart pound, trying to push the cold sludge her blood has turn to through her veins. She's afraid, but not of him.

She's terrified of entering the house and seeing the things she's spent the past few years running from.

"Pansy." Blaise tugs on her hand and pulls her into a hug that causes croaks to leak from deep in her throat and she is safe-home-safe.

"He's-he's here? Truly?" She asks, feels rather than sees his nod as she is tucked against his chest.

"He's home." Blaise says but there's something in his voice that makes her knees give out.

There's a loud commotion in the cottage, someone storming down the stairs towards them. Delicate hands with nails bitten down to the quick push her roughly from the circle of Blaise's arms and fist into the fabric covering her shoulders and for a half-second Pansy thinks she's going to ruin her dress as she stumbles backwards but then- _then_. A weak cry slips past the girl's lips and those hands, the ones with long, thin fingers that were always smooth and graceful with a perfect pastel manicure, now so coarse and different, drag her into a shaky embrace. They're of a similar enough height but Pansy chokes on a mouthful of blonde hair as Daphne trembles and presses herself as close to Pansy as she can. Tears dribble down her cheeks while she listens to her friend sob against her.

The tightness that's been building in her chest since the moment she read the letter catches her breath and holds tight, stealing every lungful she drags in and the only thing she can do is choke on the tears. Her arms close around Daphne and she inhales greasy strands of unwashed hair and **gross** but she doesn't care, not now.

"Daph," she clutches at her friend and feels Blaise wrap them both up in his long arms, says again, "Daph."

"Oh, _Pansy_." Daphne whispers.

Somehow, without letting go, Blaise manages to bring them inside. She closes her eyes tight, pushes down every sob that wants to escape, tightens her grasp on Daphne and then opens her eyes, lets go.

A quick glance around the room reveals the combined sitting room with an attached nook that holds a table with eight, _too many_ , chairs squeezed around it. An open doorway at the back gives her a view of what must be the kitchen, though it's as small as the pantry of the manor she grew up in. Rickety stairs press tight against the western all and lead to a dark hallway that she assumes has more rooms but can't see. Every lamp on the ground floor is lit, burning at her eyes and turning everything into glossy stars as it reflects through her tears. Blaise flicks off the lantern and places it on the table, guiding Daphne towards a plush chair that drips stuffing out through the arms. Pansy drops her bag.

In the light Pansy can see the dark circles bruised under their eyes and the wrinkled mess of fine clothing they wear. Daphne weeps into her hands quietly and Pansy wants to go whisper words of comfort but she's still not exactly sure what she's walked into-a cottage, yes; her friends, yes. Blaise's hand grips her shoulder tightly but not painfully and leads her into the kitchen. She looks over her shoulder at Daphne, still sniffling and curled into the chair, but whose eyes take long, slow blinks like she's on the edge of falling asleep right where she is.

"What's happened," it's not so much a question, but a demand.

"He's home," Blaise answers-but-not-really. She has questions and fears and accusations to sling but mostly she wants an _explanation_.

The letter she had held now lays crumpled in the dirt outside but they both know what it says; he had written it, after all.

 _Draco's been attacked. Please come home._

He'd been on his way to talk to his solicitor about the reparations the Malfoy family was due to pay to the Ministry and charities and the fund for orphans of the war, Blaise explains. Desperate to repent, Draco had taken on every duty and decision while his father wasted away in Azkaban and his mother confined herself, wandless, to one of the last few properties the family still owned-this, she already knows. Pansy has read his letters.

"His unconscious body was delivered to his mother, like a-like a fucking _package_ ," Blaise spits. "No one even knew he'd been gone. And now..."

Her friend's hesitation to finish sets her on edge. Her jaw hurts from grinding her teeth too much and she'll regret it later.

"Now?" Pansy prompts.

"Now," his eyes drift to the side, avoiding hers. "He's been cursed."

Distantly something wails. Lights flicker. She can't _breathe_.

She can't hear the words but she says something that makes him nod.

They skip past Daphne quietly and when the stairs the climb creak ominously she doesn't wake from her doze. The dark hallway at the top of the stairs has three doors, two of them closed, the last one ajar and leading into a bathroom with cracked tile. Blaise takes her to the first one and pushes it open without knocking. It's dark in here, too, the heavy curtains closed despite the fact that it's night and that the cottage has no neighbors to worry about. The only light is a small flame that flickers in an empty bowl beside the large bed.

And Pansy _sees_.

Draco lies pale on the bed, bruises and cuts peppering his face.

She swallows. "What-" Can't finish.

He looks so small in the mammoth four-poster bed that takes up most of the space in the room, so very pale even against the off-white covers. The blankets are pulled up to his chin and tucked around him but she can see how emaciated he is, face gaunt, every bone in his body sticking out. She doesn't want to step closer and see the cuts or bruises or _any of it_ but forces herself to walk forward, clenching her jaw so tight she feels as if her teeth might shatter under the pressure.

"What happened?" She finishes her question this time.

A chair squeaks where the legs rub the floor, a figure pushing itself up and into the little bit of light that comes from the flame.

"We don't know." Narcissa whispers. Her eyes are glued to her son's face.

"Every healer we could get has seen him," Blaise adss, "multiple broken ribs, missing teeth, fingers-" He shudders.

"Is he… can he wake up?" Pansy asks.

"No," Narcissa shrugs. Pansy wants to smack her, hard, slap the deadness out of the woman's eyes and clout the life back into her.

"They think the curse is preventing that." Blaise says.

"And what… how do we break it?"

"We don't," Narcissa turns to her now, staring her down with a lifeless gaze.

Pansy feels lightheaded and dizzy and maybe she should have eaten something before she traveled across the Atlantic by floo and discovered her best friend almost-dead. She pushes her shoulders back and pads over to the bed, unsteady and wobbling on legs that feel like they're boneless, kneels on the other side of the bed across from Narcissa.

Draco is… so much more than just her best friend. He'd been her first love, her first lover, her family, her eventual platonic soulmate. And he's so… broken. She's never seen him like this, not even during the war, and it's intimate in a cruel way.

Her breath stutters and it's all just so very unfair-he's a good person. Not the best, but he's _good_ , the best of the two of them and better than she could ever be. He's made mistakes but he's also dedicated to atoning for them. He didn't-doesn't deserve this, the fear and pain he must be going through. And the whole time, she's just been reading a fucking _book_.

He is **her Draco** and she is **his Pansy** and maybe he's not the love of her life but he's her soulmate and she loves him in a way she will never love anyone else.

She makes her way to the toilet just in time to vomit into it. Again, and then dry heaves wrack her body and twist up her insides. She casts a silencing charm over the room and screams until she's hoarse and claws at her skin because suddenly it feels too tight and she feels dirty, collapsed on chipped tile with her knees pulled to her chin and her arms wrapped around them but she does not cry-not because she refuses to shed tears for him but because she knows they won't help anything, won't make him better. So she holds them back.

When she finally makes her way back to the room she's alone.

Draco barely seems to count; the rough inhales and shuddering exhales the only thing marking his presence in the room, withering away before her eyes. She walks to the bed and toes off her boots, lays her wand on the nightstand, curls around him on her side without touching him and making only the smallest of movements. She studies him for what seems like minutes and is actually hours, so afraid to touch him. She says:

"Welcome home, Pansy."

* * *

There's not much to do around the cottage.

She doesn't know any cleaning or repair spells, doesn't know how to fix cracked windows or shattered tiles like a muggle would. They split meal-making between the three of them, giving Narcissa the time to stand vigil at Draco's bedside like she has been since he was attacked, only leaving when she uses the washroom. Pansy has never been close to Draco's parents, despite knowing them her entire life, but she brings Narcissa plates of food for each meal that mostly go untouched and transfigures a narrow cot so she doesn't have to sleep on the floor next to her son's bed.

The healers-the ones that don't refuse outright to treat a former death eater-come and go, casting charms and diagnostic spells day after day until finally throwing their hands up and admitting defeat. The visits dwindle from thrice daily to once to weekly to nothing. They leave behind potions and instructions to slow the curse and promise to not stop until they can find the cure but when Pansy scrawls out letters, her messages are never replied to and when she fire-calls St. Mungo's, the healers are never in. Every last knut the Malfoy's had is wasted on people who see them as _scum_ , who treat them like their lives aren't worth it.

The money runs out.

Blaise and Daphne and Pansy dip into their own meager savings to pay for the potions, the bank accounts that used to overflow with gold emptying out, purses weighing less each day. She goes to former classmates, all Slytherins, and begs for loans but they turn her away with insincere apologies and looks of sympathy on their face that almost masks the pity but not quite. Daphne spends hours walking along the beach that runs along the edge of the property. Blaise goes out in the evenings and doesn't return until the next morning, reeking of perfume and cigarettes and sex. Pansy cuts her hair short so she can get away with washing it twice a week and reads _The Bell Jar_ aloud to Draco.

The last straw is at the end of her sixth week back in England, the evening that Narcissa is due to go visit her husband.

The sun sets earlier and earlier each day, each night cooler than the last as they tip over the tail end of autumn and into winter. Daphne is shrugging into her coat and about to floo to the Greengrass manor to spend time with her sisters, arguing with Blaise over who promised to stand watch over Draco's fragile form in place of Narcissa and feed him the fourth serving of his potion.

"Pansy will do it," Blaise announces. Daphne scoffs but doesn't offer any objections.

And that's-

No.

For forty-one days she has woken up with a crick in her neck from sleeping on a transfigured mattress because her cushioning charms had worn off during the night.

For forty-one days she has prepared breakfast for four and cleaned an entire house without magic, sweeping the dirt and sand her friends track in and knocking down cobwebs from the corners that the blasted spiders build each night, watching Blaise and Daphne disappear longer and longer, leaving her with a woman who makes no noise other than the heartbreaking sobs she lets loose every few hours.

For forty-one days she has spoonfed and played nursemaid and read to her best friend who _can't even hear her_ and seen him wither away before her very eyes.

For all those mornings and afternoons and evenings and nights she has not complained one mite because there were people _depending on her_ to stay strong.

And she has; oh, she has.

It could be hush that falls over the cottage after she slams her book closed with a _whump_ that echoes throughout the room, but each word that she spits at her friends sounds _louder-harder-harsher_ than a dragon's fiery roar.

"You selfish bloody _ **children,**_ " Pansy lets the words wash over them as they turn to her, eyes wide. A snarl forms on her lips. "Do you know how egotistical, self-centered, absolutely fucking _horrid_ you are?"

She turns towards Blaise. "Fucking your way through the county while your friend still heals from wounds he got being _tortured_. And you," Pansy shifts her venomous gaze onto Daphne, "running away like an infant every time your friend needs changing because he's shit the bed again. You useless pricks. He's been cursed!"

"That's enough, Pans," Blaise wraps an arm around Daphne as she starts to keen.

"It's not enough! It will never be enough," she hisses, "abandoning him to waste away under the care of his miserable mother who is no better than a dead squib! Am I the only one that cares?

"He's _**dying!**_ " She corrects herself in a whisper, "he's already dead."

For the first time since she arrived at this godawful dump, Pansy lets herself cry. Scrubbing angrily at the tears, she heaves in hulking breaths and prepares to storm out of the cottage and into the night, pushing past her friends until the creak of the stairs stops her and she gasps. Narcissa stands on the steps and looks down at her with lifeless eyes.

"Leave." Narcissa says.

"I-"

The waifish older woman interrupts Pansy, shouting, "leave! _Get out!_ "

The lamps flicker. Turning on the spot, Pansy runs out of the cottage and stumbles down the sloping, dirt path, blinded by burning tears. She trips and skins her knees, her palms, continues on until the lights from the house fade away. The town appears before her as she slows and Pansy realizes she's left her wand behind. But she can't- _won't_ turn back.

Shivering and with her knees still bleeding she heads to the pub she knows is in the center of town. Her coat and bag are with her wand in the sitting room, and Pansy knows that with tears smearing her makeup and dirt on her clothes she's unlikely to receive any drinks from admiring muggles, but perhaps the bartender will take pity on her. Approaching the brightly lit building, the door swings open so hard it hits the wall and rattles the entire front. Music and chatter spill out but can't cover up the shouting group that exits the pub on swaying legs. Someone who must be the manager has another by the collar and tosses the person out so roughly they trip on the kerb and land in the street a mere meter away from her. Cracked glasses skid to a halt at her feet.

Someone from the rowdy group staggers over to the man on his hands and knees in the street, lifting a foot and slamming it into the other's ribs so hard she can hear something crack; the breath leaves him in a cut-off _whoosh_. Dark, shaggy hair obscures his face but Pansy can see blood mixed with spit dripping down his chin.

Frozen where she stands, Pansy observes the men and assesses the threat-level like any Slytherin would. She sees that they all have dark bruises forming on them and one has both eyes swollen nearly shut, another with a cut high on his cheekbone and a bloating jaw. The group circles around the man in the street as he stumbles to his feet, throwing an arm up to block a fist just before it hits his face. He moves awkwardly but it's still obvious that he has training of some sort as he fends off the man that kicked him.

"Fuck him up!" The one with two swollen eyes cheers, "go on Davey, kick his ass!"

She counts four men circling around the two fighting, all cheering 'Davey' on in some form of a jeer as they push the loner from behind to try and knock him off balance. Even being shoved in the direction of Davey's fists and tripping over legs as the gang kick out against his shins, the other man is able to block each punch and jab.

"Get him!"

They converge on the man in a flurry of flailing limbs, five against one. The loner fights them off as well as he can with quick jabs and by ducking and weaving through them and soon enough he has three of them on the ground and groaning from their injuries. He moves swiftly and mercilessly; Pansy knows he has at least one cracked rib, _she heard it snap_ , and still he advances in a way that makes her think **lion**. He has his back to her but something in the way he looks at the remaining pair has them raising their hands in surrender and slowly backing up.

Her heart _pound-pound-pounds_ in her chest while her breath is sharp and shallow. The two left gather up their piteously whining friends and Pansy presses herself into the shadows so that when they scurry past, limping, they don't notice her. And then, finally, the man believes himself to be alone. He sways drunkenly before collapsing.

Pansy takes a moment to remind herself that she's a Slytherin; self-preservation is in her _blood_. She's not a fucking Gryffindor, doesn't rush mindlessly into things before assessing the situation, carefully weighing the outcomes and choosing the best one for _her_ just because a stranger is in trouble. She doesn't trust blindly or stick her neck out for someone she doesn't like or doesn't know. She's silver and green through-and-through.

She doesn't have an excuse for what she does next.

Picking up the glasses, she wipes the grit away on the hem of her dress. "Are you alright?"

Making sure her footsteps are loud enough to not be a surprise, she repeats herself as the man grunts and turns his beaten face towards her. The opposite cheeks rubs dirt into the wounds as he does so, making her grimace. She tucks her dress around her legs as she kneels down next to him.

"Is there anyone I can-" She forgets the muggle word, says instead, "...anything I can get for you?"

He tries to say something, the guttural noises to slurred for her to hear. Watching as the one eye attempts-and fails-to focus on her face, she slowly reaches out towards him.

"It's alright," she soothes, "I'm just going to put your glasses on."

The closer she leans in, the more the scent of cheap beer and whiskey wafts off of him, so strong it almost makes her eyes water. The man coughs but over and over he tries to speak-something that starts with a _'b,'_ she thinks. The smell of stale alcohol is washing over her and she finally perches the glasses lightly on his face, brushing a bit of dark hair out of his eyes, when she's finally close enough to hear the words he's saying. One word, really.

" _Parkeenshun?"_

Her veins fill with ice and every hair on her body stands up at that voice, _oh_ , that voice.

Those eyes.

That _scar_.

"Fuck." She says.

* * *

Title from the poem "Anna Who Was Mad" by Anne Sexton.

References:  
The Awakening - Kate Chopin  
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton  
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë  
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Thanks for reading, tell me what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings: an inebriated character, descriptions of panic attacks.

* * *

It's a dark and stormy night and Pansy can taste lightning on her lips.

The shoelace portkey that takes her to Salem, Massachusetts drops her in an open field just outside the town. The rain pours down, soaking her to the bone before she even has time to take out her wand and cast a rain-repellant charm. She pulls her robes up over her head and ducks as she runs into the town.

Salem is lit up around her, the warm glow of lights in the windows of each building throwing glimmering patches onto the street in front of her as she makes her way to the local apparition point, behind a dingy bar. She curls her lip in disgust as the smell of cheap spirits and even cheaper beer wafts from the building. Skulking in the shadows, she slips out of the chilly summer rain and under the eaves. The back is just as dreadful as the front. Puddles of mud litter the ground like landmines waiting to be stepped in. Once there, she pulls a slip of paper from her pocket with the location of her aunt's house on it, closes her eyes, focuses, and apparates.

Even in the dark she can tell that her aunt has grossly over-exaggerated the appeal of the place.

The cottage is smaller than her suite of rooms had been back in England, three rooms total compared to the six she had had to herself on the Parkinson estate-back before their manor had been taken when her mother had been sentenced. The kitchen, dining, and parlour room are combined into a single space on the first floor and the bedroom and loo on the second. It's small and worn-down but at least it's dry.

With a flick of her wand she lights a candle on the first floor and takes it up with her. The stairs creak ominously under her feet and the paint on the walls chipped, the wallpaper faded and yellowed and she has a sudden urge to apparate home as quickly as she can. But back home is where the reporters waited outside her door to pester her about her dead father and Death Eater mother; where normal people turn into vicious monsters and pelt her with horrible names; where shops refuse to let her in and restaurants refuse to serve her. Back home is where she has no home anymore.

So she steels her resolve and unpacks her meagre belongings by candlelight, the pitter-patter of rain on the roof and windows washing away her doubts. In the morning, she decides, she'll be a brand new person with a brand new life to live.

She falls asleep to the beat the rain plays.

[][][]

She takes one look at Potter and her thoughts scatter.

"Fuck," she says again in a whisper.

The moment has her rooted next to him, knees aching as the cuts from stumbling down the hill from the cottage are rubbed in dirt and gravel, staring down at his swollen face like someone's just cast a stunning spell on her. If she had her wand with her she'd Confund him but knowing Potter's ridiculous resilience, she'd end up sharing a cell with her mother in Azkaban. Inside her frozen body her mind races, turning over options and fears and _run-run-run-run_. Her hazel eyes trace the scar on his forehead over and over as it peeks out from beneath shaggy black hair.

Pansy watches dumbly as he tries to push himself up. He falls back down with a groan, rubbing more grit into his wounds. The noise is enough to startle her out of her daze.

" _Potter_ ," she hisses. "What the fuck are you _**doing**_ here?"

His hand twitches as he makes to move again and she has half a mind to kick him while he's down, right in the ribs she knows are cracked, and escape. He's drunk off his arse and has one eye slowly swelling shut, must be out of his mind in pain with blood and cuts peppering his entire body. Not to mention at least one broken rib, and yet still his muscles are bunched with tension like he's fully aware of the situation. She can't see a wand anywhere on his person and that calms her slightly. _Stupid, stupid_ , she thinks when she remembers she doesn't have her wand, either.

Potter's groans taper off into soft mumbles so she leans closer, straining her ears for words.

" _Parkeenshun, whadda fug_."

It takes her a few moments to translate but when she does, she huffs.

"I asked you first, Potter." She says, petulant.

He attempts to get up again and this time she takes pity on him-she never thought she'd have _pity_ for _Potter_ , of all people-and grabs onto the unbruised parts of his arms and pulls him up with her. Pansy stumbles off her knees and into a crouch as he tugs away from her roughly and lands face down in the dirt once more.

" _Geroffa_ me," he spits through the gravel and grit that gets into his mouth.

"Belligerent fool," she mutters quietly. Louder, she continues, "honestly. If you want to stay in the dirt in the middle of the road, be my fucking guest."

She stands, brushing off the hem of her dress and steps back from him slightly.

Loud voices and strange, peppy music filter out into the night as the door to the pub slams open and a trio of women stagger out, their arms linked and their laughter sharp. They stutter to a stop when they see the two of them, Pansy with her hands on her hips and Potter kissing the street, voices cutting off and that's just-perfect. Despite the changes in her life and personality, she will never be able to tolerate being the subject of unwanted attention.

She is brutal; blunt. Two years in Salem has rounded out the jagged bits of her character, softened the edges over time like a river wearing down stone, but there is no completely changing what she has been all her life. Pansy is still harsh and hard and a tiny bit cold. But she loves with her whole being and protects the things that are precious to her with an unparallelled viciousness, and she is fiercely warm inside and kind towards those she cares for.

Pansy knows that she and Potter are two very different people, living very different lives with sometimes conflicting values and morals. Yet she still feels a strange sense of kinship with him, because he is **one of her kind** and despite their incredible disparities there's something buzzing underneath her skin that gives her the sudden strength to haul him to his feet and towards a bench, away from the stares and mutters of the strangers.

He struggles in her grasp and gives a sharp yelp as she nearly tosses him onto the bench and _Merlin_ she wishes she had a sobering potion to pour down his throat. Throwing herself onto the bench next to him, she slumps with a hand to her forehead.

"Bugger," she pants as the odd vigor leaves her.

The minutes pass and they sit still in the shadows-how many, she doesn't know. The noises of the quaint town seem muffled even as people walk past, Pansy instead focusing on the wheezing but steadily-paced breaths Potter huffs out. A queer feeling fills her. _Granger and Weasley_ , she thinks.

They can't be far behind.

She looks around, terrified, expecting one of them to pop out of the shadows with accusations at any moment. The urge to run overwhelms her again. But despite the sense of impending doom she feels building in her chest, she knows she can't just leave Potter alone when he looks very much like he's going to choke on his own vomit. No matter how much she wants to.

A quiet _pop_ has her jumping to her feet and spinning, hand reaching towards where she usually keeps her wand. But it's not Granger nor Weasley who appears behind the bench and stumbles out of the bushes.

It's Daphne.

Pansy's shoulders sag and the anxiety fades, looking at Daphne's coiffed blonde head and for a moment she pushes the dirt around with her foot. Catching sight of her, Daphne cautiously approaches and bites on her nail.

"Pansy-"

"Daph," she interrupts her friend.

The anger and bitterness are still there; she's still hurt and mad at Daphne and Blaise. But there's an ache that's been present in her chest, a lump in her throat that's difficult to swallow around, when she thinks of how she's hurt them. And then she thinks of Draco.

He'd been working so **hard** on reparations, on reforming himself to be fit for society-not because it would be easier for him if he did, but because he'd seen firsthand the horrors of war and the monstrosity that the Dark Lord had been. He'd been trying, and whoever had cursed him had repaid him with torture. She thinks about his smile and his laugh and his sneer that she might never get to see again and it _**hurts**_. And because it hurts so, so much, she makes a decision she thinks Draco would be proud of her for.

"I'm sorry," she says at the same time Daphne blurts, "please come home."

A few steps towards each other and then they're toe-to-toe, wrapping their arms tightly around each other and offering apologies that are muffled in the other's hair. Without letting go, Pansy props her chin on Daphne's shoulder and wipes the blonde strands from her face while rubbing one hand up and down her friend's back.

"I am," she admits. "I am so sorry. I'm just…"

"Tired," Daphne supplies.

" _Yes_." The word rushes out in a _whoosh_ of breath.

"I'm sorry, too, Pans," Daphne offers. "We've-Blaise and I-been so absorbed in our own hurting that we didn't think about how you were suffering, too."

Pansy sniffles, "I'm sorry for hurting you."

She can feel Daphne's faint smile against her shoulder.

"Friends have the best ammunition against us. They know us truly as we are, and they love us not despite our flaws but for them. I know you, Pansy, and I know that you would never even consider saying those things if you weren't feeling lost. We are, too."

 _We are lost,_ she thinks, _me and Daph and Blaise. The war is won and everyone is lost._

"I'm sorry for running away," she says, and means not just tonight.

Potter takes the lapse that appears in their apologies to speak up, crooning a tuneless rendition of "Weasley is Our King."

" _Is that Potter?_ " Daphne hisses.

Nodding, Pansy brings a finger to her lips to shush her friend. She quietly explains the situation while Potter grumbles and groans on the bench, his bruises turning even more violently colored and swollen as they watch. His fingers twitch in his drunken haze. A hush falls over the street as the lamps continue flickering, the light growing softer and softer until they extinguish completely.

"What do we do with him?" Pansy asks in a whisper.

"What did _**you**_ do to _**him**_?"

"Nothing!" Pansy cries and motions towards the streetlamps. "We can't just leave him here. He's drunk off his arse and doing wandless magic!"

With a grimace on her face, Daphne taps at her chin with a finger. She sighs and runs a hand through her hair.

"Well, I can't side-along apparate you both. I'll get us splinched."

"Just help me with him." She tugs on one of Potters arms. "We'll walk."

The journey back to the cottage is filled with Potter's pained moans and Daphne's shrill complaints, Pansy huffing and puffing as they climb the hill and their feet skitter over the gravel. The grass is slippery and more than once one of them loses their footing. With Potter between them, the two girls each holding onto one arm tossed over their shoulders, one of them slipping means all three of them topple over. Pansy takes special care to avoid crushing his ribs and warns Daphne to do the same, their arms wrapped around his low back and hips. He groans and grumbles loudly as they pull him up the hill and make sure to stay far away from the cliffs that lead down to the beach. As the lights of the cottage appear at the top of the hill the closer they get, their pace picks up. They're desperate to get Potter off their shoulders.

Blaise opens the door when he hears them shout outside, unable to drop Potter's weight and open it themselves. He takes one look at the three of them and sighs, reaching out to take most of the man's weight off of the two girls.

"What the fuck." Blaise tosses Potter's body onto the sofa none-too-gently.

"He's hurt," Pansy tries.

"I can see that," Blaise replies. "What the hell did you do to him?"

" _ **I**_ didn't do anything!"

"Shhh," Daphne hushes them, pointing over at Potter. "He'll wake up."

After deliberating for a moment, she sends Daphne and Blaise to the kitchen to rifle through the cabinets, looking for a sobering potion while she grabs her wand and crouches next to the couch, at eye-level. With the tip of her wand, she pokes at him.

"We couldn't find any. There's only a hangover potion which _might_ work but-Pansy, what the hell are you doing!" Daphne says.

The sharp noise has Potter blinking awake and covering his eyes with one hand, swiping at her wand with the other. His knuckles are bruised and bloody but the cuts are closed and almost scabbed over and look better than they did when she saw them last. He mumbles something she doesn't understand, closing his eyes and beginning to snore within only moments later.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Pansy sighs.

"I'll watch him to make sure he doesn't kill us when we sleep."

Looking skeptical, Blaise says, "you're sure?"

When she nods, he adds, "wake one of us when you want to sleep."

The two former Slytherins tiptoe up the stairs, careful not to make too much noise in the late hour, leaving her to conjure a blanket to place gingerly over Potter and pick up her book.

Extinguishing all the lamps around the room except for one, Pansy brings it over to the armchair and opens her book in her lap. She reads until the words swim on the page in front of her. Esther Greenwood leaps from the story and into her dreams and she drifts off to the promise of only closing her eyes for a minute.

In the morning, the couch is empty. Potter is gone.

* * *

Esther Greenwood is the main character in "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath.

I'm sorry this has taken me so long and that it's much shorter than the first chapter. I've been struggling a lot with writing lately. Thank you for sticking with me; hopefully I'll get the next chapter up quicker!

Please tell me what you think!


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